Senator Compares AMA to a Prostitute

There were some heated words on the Senate floor today as Congress debated what to do about planned Medicare pay cuts for doctors. We’ll get to the rhetoric in a minute, but first a bit of the back story.

Under current law, Medicare payment rates for doctors will fall by 21% next year. Nobody seems to want to let the cuts take effect, and Congress has repeatedly blocked similar pay cuts in recent years. But permanently scrapping the planned cuts would add some $250 billion in federal spending over the next decade.

A Democratic bill (S. 1776) being debated in the Senate this week would permanently scrap the planned cuts without addressing the higher cost. Many Republicans favor scrapping the pay cuts, but oppose the bill because it would add to the deficit.

Count Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, in that group. In a speech on the Senate floor today, Corker said, “I absolutely agree that physicians around this country do not need to take a 25% cut.”

Corker also cited a report from The Hill that said Democratic leaders offered the AMA and other doctors’ groups a deal: The Democrats would block the Medicare pay cuts, if the doctors’ groups would back Democrats’ broader health-care bill.

We all know that the selling of one’s body is one of the oldest businesses that has existed in the history of the world. And so the AMA now is engaged in basically selling the support of its body by throwing future generations under the bus by in essence urging that we as Congress pass this week a quarter of a trillion spending bill, unpaid for. And if we would do that we might get their support in health care reform.

The Health Blog asked the AMA for a response; they sent us this statement from president-elect Cecil B. Wilson:

Senator Corker takes issue with AMA standing up for seniors, baby boomers and military families in Tennessee and nationwide. … We encourage Senator Corker to join his colleagues in voting yes on S. 1776 before access to care for Tennessee patients is further eroded by steep Medicare cuts to physicians.